Native American music,music of the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. The Americas contain hundreds of native communities, each with its own distinctive history, language, and musical culture. These communities—although united in placing music at the centre of public life—have developed extraordinarily diverse and multifaceted performance traditions. This article provides a general introduction to Native American musics with treatments of the roles of music in culture, musical styles and genres, musical instruments, music history, and the study of American Indian musics.

Music in Native American culture

Generalizations about the relationship between music and culture in Native American communities are gleaned ... (100 of 13,427 words)